The new low comes as Obama enters the home stretch in his push to enact his signature initiative, an overhaul of the nation’s health care system, and escalates America’s involvement in the Afghanistan war.

Below are comparable ratings for other presidents since Gallup began taking presidential approval polls in 1938:

• George W. Bush, 86 percent
• Bill Clinton, 52 percent
• George H.W. Bush, 71 percent
• Ronald Reagan, 49 percent
• Jimmy Carter, 57 percent
• Gerald Ford, 52 percent
• Richard Nixon, 59 percent
• Lyndon Johnson, 74 percent
• John Kennedy, 77 percent
• Dwight Eisenhower, 69 percent
• Harry Truman, 49 percent

Franklin Roosevelt had been in office more than five years before Gallup began taking presidential approval polls. During  his remaining years as president, Roosevelt never fell below 48 percent.

The poll is an average of a three-day tracking of 1,529 adults taken Dec. 4-6. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Reviewing books and holding ALL public figures accountable is supposed to be at the core of good journalism - but the Associated Press’ treatment of Palin’s book is unprecedented and unfair.

When the former Republican vice presidential candidate and former Alaska governor wrote her autobiography, the AP found a copy before its release and assigned 11 reporters to fact check all 432 pages.

The AP claims Palin misstated her record with regard to travel expenses and taxpayer-funded bailouts, using statements widely reported elsewhere. But it also speculated into Palin’s motives for writing “Going Rogue: An American Life,” stating as fact that the book “has all the characteristics of a pre-campaign manifesto.”

Palin quickly hit back on a Facebook post titled “Really? Still Making Things Up?” ”Imagine that,” the post read. “11 AP reporters dedicating time and resources to tearing up the book, instead of using the time and resources to ‘fact check’ what’s going on with Sheik Mohammed’s trial, Pelosi’s health care takeover costs, Hasan’s associations, etc. Amazing.”

The AP, an organization with over 4,000 employees and 49 Pulitzer Prizes wouldn’t comment on their own reporting for this story.

The treatment Palin’s book received appears to be something new for the AP. The organization did not review for accuracy recent books by the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, then-Sen. Joe Biden, either book by Barack Obama released before he was president or autobiographies by Bill or Hillary Clinton. This reminds me of when CNN’s Wolf Blitzer fact-checked a SNL skit on Obama, vigorously defending their anointed one against political satire on a comedy show.  Did they ever fact check skits skewering Bush, Cheney or even the Pope? Of course not.  SNL should have done a skit on CNN’s kneejerk defense of Obama. But would that have been satire or irony? Hmmmm.

Regardless, 11 AP reporters poring over every word of Palin’s book is excessive - and further proof of the media’s maltreatment of the hapless  hockey mom from Wasilla. Again, I am not big supporter of Sarah Palin, but if the partisan media keeps this up, I may end up in the Palin camp after all.

Like many extremist groups, Somalia’s hardline al Shabaab group is cracking down on residents who do not follow a strict form of Sharia Islamic law, now publicly whipping women who wear bras, the Times of India reported.

Residents tell the paper that gunmen have been gathering women in Mogadishu who are perceived to have firm busts. These women are then publicly whipped by masked men as punishment for what Islamist leaders call deception.

After the public whippings, the women are forced to remove their bras and shake their breasts, the Times reported.

“Al Shabaab forced us to wear their type of veil and now they order us to shake our breasts,” a resident, Halima, told the Times of India. Her daughters were whipped for wearing bras.

“They first banned the former veil and introduced a hard fabric which stands stiffly on women’s chests. They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat,” she said.

The insurgent group recently amputated a foot and a hand from two young men accused of robbery. Al Shabaab has also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.

Sometimes its appropriate to condemn religious behavior.  That time is now. If Catholic priests involved in whipping women, it would be front page news of Time Magazine and every other media outlet.  Why do they look the other way for non-Christains?

Remember “cash for clunkers,” the program that subsidized Americans to the tune of nearly $3 billion to buy a new car and destroy an old one? Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood declared in August that, “This is the one stimulus program that seems to be working better than just about any other program.”

If that’s true, heaven help the other programs. Last week U.S. automakers reported that new car sales for September, the first month since the clunker program expired, sank by 25% from a year earlier. Sales at GM and Chrysler fell by 45% and 42%, respectively. Ford was down about 5%. Some 700,000 cars were sold in the summer under the program as buyers received up to $4,500 to buy a new car they would probably have purchased anyway, so all the program seems to have done is steal those sales from the future. Exactly as critics predicted.

Cash for clunkers had two objectives: help the environment by increasing fuel efficiency, and boost car sales to help Detroit and the economy. It achieved neither. According to Hudson Institute economist Irwin Stelzer, at best “the reduction in gasoline consumption will cut our oil consumption by 0.2 percent per year, or less than a single day’s gasoline use.” Burton Abrams and George Parsons of the University of Delaware added up the total benefits from reduced gas consumption, environmental improvements and the benefit to car buyers and companies, minus the overall cost of cash for clunkers, and found a net cost of roughly $2,000 per vehicle. Rather than stimulating the economy, the program made the nation as a whole $1.4 billion poorer.

The basic fallacy of cash for clunkers is that you can somehow create wealth by destroying existing assets that are still productive, in this case cars that still work. Under the program, auto dealers were required to destroy the car engines of trade-ins with a sodium silicate solution, then smash them and send them to the junk yard. As the journalist Henry Hazlitt wrote in his classic, “Economics in One Lesson,” you can’t raise living standards by breaking windows so some people can get jobs repairing them.

In the category of all-time dumb ideas, cash for clunkers rivals the New Deal brainstorm to slaughter pigs to raise pork prices. The people who really belong in the junk yard are the wizards in Washington who peddled this economic malarkey.

Recently I received a call from an HR person looking to speak to me about a New Business Development position.  My background has ERP experience (technology) and I have over 11 years in B to B experience at the highest level.  The position in question was in technology, and while it varied from my experience, was not too far removed.  I pride myself on my ability to generate revenue and adapt to a new industry, as I have done so a few times in my career with great success.

This HR IDIOT starts me out with “well, I reviewed your resume and don’t see a fit but maybe you can tell me something about yourself that doesn’t appear on your resume”.  How in God’s name do you respond to a person whose sole purpose on this planet is to oblige law so to give the appearance of even handedness.  They have no practical experience and fall under the “Those who can do, do.  Those who can’t teach”.  But in this case it’s “those who can’t work in HR”.

Well, I politely answered in a manner fitting a pea brained individual simply filling a position mandated by the state.  However, had I known how the rest of this phone interview was going to go, and knowing that she just didn’t understand how my skill set translated quite nicely, I wouldn’t answered something like this:  “I dont’ think someone of my level should have to qualify myself to someone who cannot assimilate the simplest of skill set transference  and business concepts”.

Then I should have hung up on her and tried to call back someone in upper management.  And while I know this would’ve been a fruitless exercise, I would’ve been spared the embarrassment of being castrated by some pea brained moron who should be the one on my side of the phone asking me for a job.

Yes, I am talking about my ex-wife, who is truly one of the world’s all-time epic bitches.

I am paying the price for making a horrible decision by marrying a monster when I was too young to know the difference. Unfortunately, my young son and new wife are also paying the price. I love my son more than anything, but I would give anything for him to have had a different mother. He will never have a normal life as long as she is able to manipulate and control him. It is criminal.  Like many men, I wish I had a do-over on that one.  But at least it makes me appreciate my new wife so much more. In comparison, she could never do any wrong.

I don’t mean to sound vindictive, but after all the crap my family has been put through, I enjoy the fact that every decent guy she hooks up with realizes that she is a crazy, self-serving narcissist and dumps her. Eventually her friends also figure out that she is a vapid fake with no heart or sense of empathy. She gets off on dominating people, so the first time you disagree with her, watch out - Hell hath no fury like a minor disagreement with my ex-wife! So she tends to go through sets of friends every couple of years, but not before she leaves a wake of lies and destruction - usually targeted toward me or my wife. But there is only one truth and everyone eventually figures out that she is a sociopath. Then, when I become friends with her ex-friends, I hear all the stories about the “crazy lady”.  But it’s not just a story to me. It’s my painful reality and it just won’t go away.

As a Catholic, I take solace in knowing that she will burn in hell for eternity. I know that doesn’t sound very Christian of me, but I know that God understands. I am sure he can’t stand her either. Besides, he has mercy, unlike some people who fuck up their children for the rest of their lives. Child abuse comes in many forms, and I believe that God has a special place in Hell for each one of them. It’s nice to know that my ex-wife has a future.

If you’ve had similar experiences, leave a comment.

Going to Denmark to pitch the Olympics.

Yes, that’s what we need at this critical time.  He shouldn’t be trying to put our minds at ease about what he plans to do with Iran.  We don’t need to address more seriously the problems in Afghanistan.  We certainly don’t need try and resolve our healthcare fiasco.  And Mr. President, whatever you do, please continue to ignore the recession and the joblessness in our country. 

Oh, I see, he’s using the old “lets go to sleep and hopefully everything will be fine in the morning” tactic.  President Obama, you sly fox, you go and enjoy your stay in Copenhagen, everything will be just fine.

Forty percent of employees at organizations affected by layoffs say productivity has been negatively impacted, according to a recent survey by the Workforce Institute at Kronos. Of those 40%, two-thirds of them say that morale is suffering and that employees are less motivated than before.

Now that the pace of layoffs is slowing, and the smoke is starting to clear, smart companies are taking stock and realizing that morale can affect the bottom line.

Not all employers understand this basic fact, but worker morale is a crucial part of running a solid business. An organization may have a hard time hanging on to employees in the long term and have trouble attracting new talent if its reputation as a good place to work is soured. The company may also not be prepared to meet increased demand when the economy picks up again.

Unfortunately, this brutal recession may have caused a permanent shift in the way companies treat their employees - it not only destroyed the markets, but killed any humanity in countless companies.

Here is the truth that millions of Americans are coming to realize - anyone who hides behind the race card is a RACIST!

Here’s more proof to the hypocrisy of the racist left. How many times have you heard a liberal characterize a black Republican as being an “Uncle Tom”. Holy Crap! You can’t get more racist than hating a black conservative just because he’s black!

Are you getting sick of the racists crying racist! Leave a comment.

How can anyone with half of a brain think that our government isn’t going to drop the ball yet again.  Let’s review the several ways that our government has earned our distrust.  First Bailout Bill was a 4 page document that basically gave banks and every other corporate giant money to spend on themselves, despite the warnings that our economic lives are in danger.  The Second Bailout Bill, under Obama, which was suppose to be more transparent and used exclusively to revive our dying economy, according the Barney Frank.  Yet months later nobody knows where the money is, and Chris Dodd had to cover Geithner and Obama’sass about the AIG bonuses, which weren’t suppose to be in the bill.  Billions of dollars being wasted subsidizing recycling centers which cause more pollution and cost more to run, the only worthwhile thing to recycle is aluminum cans. 

WMD, lies; Iraqi Freedom, lies; Nancy Pelosi not knowing about the extent of torture; lies.  I can go on and on.  So when the topic of healthcare reform is brought up, and we hear that there are literally hundreds of renditions of this bill, all packed with worthless pork and double talking, why would the citizens of this great country protest, if not for protest sake.

So Washington, D.C., sleep well in the beds that you’ve made for yourselves.  Nobody trusts you anymore.